The RASTA Project
The National Research Program (PNR) 2015-20201 is an initiative that aims to promote research and innovation in the country. This program aims to support research and development projects in various sectors, including science, technology, health and the environment. During its implementation period, the PNR 2015-2020 has funded a number of research projects that have contributed to improving competitiveness and innovation, promoting collaboration between research institutes, universities, and industry. The program has also favored the interdisciplinary approach and addressed important challenges, such as sustainability, public health and emerging technologies. The National Research Program (PNR) 2015-2020 has identified 12 strategic areas of specialization to promote industrial research and experimental development. In each of these areas of specialization, the PNR 2015-2020 has supported industrial research and experimental development projects aimed at promoting innovation, competitiveness and sustainable development, providing resources and ideas to address the challenges of the contemporary world. The Project in question, entitled “RASTA - Augmented Reality and Automated Story-Telling for the enhancement of Cultural Heritage and Itineraries”, with incentive identification code ARS01_00540,2 has as its area of specialization “Cultural Heritage”. The “Cultural Heritage3” Specialization Area refers to a broad set of knowledge domains, attributable to different industrial fields: systems, technologies and applications for tourism, technologies and applications for the conservation, access, management, security, enjoyment and enhancement of cultural, artistic and landscape heritage. These systems, technologies and applications must promote the development of a systemic approach capable of innovating, specializing and qualifying the tourist offer through the activation of territorial networks (local and national) and a competitive positioning of tourist destinations oriented according to the logic of profiling needs and customizing the user experience in an inclusive and participatory way.
PROJECT GOVERNANCE
Several Project governance bodies have been activated, which, in synergy with the Scientific Project Manager (identified during the presentation and evaluation phase of the Project Proposal, in the person of Prof. Beniamino Di Martino), conduct the scientific direction of the project, the monitoring of the progress of the scientific activities carried out, the use of economic resources, and the verification that they are in line with what was established in the planning phase, as well as possibly identify possible deviations from the planned activities and the use of resources, and in any case manage problems of any nature (e.g. corporate changes of the partners), bringing them to the attention of the Technical Scientific Expert and the co-financing body (MIUR) for the necessary measures (e.g. requests for variation). The governance bodies are as follows:
Partecipants:
| Name | Surname | Partner |
|---|---|---|
| Beniamino | Di Martino | Universitá della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” |
| Rosanna | Alaggio | Università degli Studi del Molise |
| Mario Alessandro | Bochicchio | Università degli Studi di Bari |
| Andrea | De Blasi | SA Documents |
| Ludovico | Iovino | Gran Sasso Science Institute |
| Giuseppe | Liotta | Università degli Studi di Perugia |
| Sergio | Marino | Orangee |
| Vincenzina | Messina | Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca |
| Settimio | Rienzo | Comunitá montana Vallo di Diano |
whose tasks include: ensuring that the technical objectives of the project are achieved; supervising the technical collaboration between the WPs; solving technical problems; managing the quality and compliance with the deadlines of the deliverables/objectives; reporting any deviations to the Scientific Responsible and the CC. The Executive Committee is composed of the scientific responsibles of the WPs, and is chaired by the Scientific Responsible of the project, assisted by the Project Manager (PM).
Partecipants:
| Name | Surname | Partner | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beniamino | Di Martino | Universitá della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” | Scientific Responsible |
| Antonio | Esposito | Universitá della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” | Project Manager |
| Dario | Branco | Universitá della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” | WP1 Leader |
| Sergio | Marino | Orangee | WP2 Leader |
| Alba | Amato | Universitá della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” | WP3 Leader |
| Giuseppina | Renda | Universitá della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” | WP4 Leader |
| Rosanna | Alaggio | Universitá degli Studi del Molise | WP5 Leader |
| Martina | De Sanctis | Gran Sasso Science Institute | WP6 Leader |
| Giuseppe | Liotta | Universitá degli Studi di Perugia | WP7 Leader |
| Mario Alessandro | Bochicchio | Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro | WP8 Leader |
The following roles are also foreseen:
- Project Manager (PM): assists the Scientific Project Manager in the executive application and management of decisions taken by the CE. He is in turn assisted by the WPLs.
- WP Responsible – WP Leaders (WPL): Activities of each Work package are coordinated by a Work Package Leader (WPL).
- Task Managers – Task Leaders (TM):Each WPleader can assign one or more TMs to execute specific sub-goals. TMs report directly to the WP Leader.
Technological Objectives
The project activities focus on a set of innovative techniques and technologies that will enable more efficient management of cultural content, improved access to information, personalised tourism experiences and the creation of dynamic stories based on cultural heritage and user preferences. The technologies that will be developed are: Archiviazione e Metadatazione: Si stanno sviluppando tecniche avanzate per descrivere in dettaglio, memorizzare ed amministrare contenuti digitali relativi a beni culturali, beni museali e archivi. Questo comprende la creazione di metadati dettagliati relativi all'oggetto digitale, le informazioni archivistiche e le descrizioni dell'oggetto stesso. La metadatazione sarà resa interoperabile tra vari standard nazionali ed internazionali.
Through semantic annotation of content through domain ontology concepts, specific semantic information will be associated with texts and data. This approach will improve the accessibility of information on the web and in web-based document archives, allowing more effective searches and more efficient navigation.
Recommender systems are being developed that use advanced techniques to suggest attractions or points of interest to the user based on preferences and interests. These techniques include content-based approaches and collaborative filtering, which filter out irrelevant information and offer personalized recommendations.
An advanced system dedicated to composing, navigating and querying stories is currently under development. The system provides users with a specialized editing tool to create stories and convert their graphic representations into ontological representations. This tool has been designed to optimize the experience of enjoying stories, ensuring a narrative structure that conforms to narrative schemes and conventions. The structuring of stories is based on an ontological classification, allowing for a better organization of narrative information. This approach aims to offer a more cohesive and coherent narration, providing the user with a structural framework that facilitates the composition of stories, selecting stories involving specific characters or locations, thus improving navigation and organization of the contents of historical archives. This approach will help filter stories based on specific criteria, improving access to the desired content. In addition, the system plans to implement a functionality for querying ontological representations of stories. This module will allow users to explore and retrieve stories based on specific parameters, leveraging the ontological information associated with each story. This will allow users to search for stories involving specific characters or locations, making it easier to navigate and organize the contents of historical archives. This feature will be particularly useful for those who want to access stories related to certain characters or places, allowing them to find the desired information efficiently, based on their interests and preferences, leveraging the ontological relationships between narrative elements. The use of ontology-based structuring and ontological interrogation of stories will greatly contribute to making the organization and use of the contents of historical archives more efficient, facilitating access to relevant stories.
This technology uses large amounts of data from IoT sensors to improve geo-positioning and offers recommendation and personalization services based on dynamic preferences and contexts. It focuses on processing complex data and adapting to user needs in real time.
We talk about art, culture and museums, we talk about emotions that involve all the senses. This is the goal of all cultural sites, and in a country like ours, with a vast cultural heritage, we should be even more motivated to achieve it, even if one of the visitors’ senses were to be lost (for example, sight or hearing). Cultural sites should be open and inclusive towards people with disabilities. However, the accessibility of art cannot be generalized, but must be guaranteed for all types of disabilities, starting from the design of the museum itself. There are various solutions, such as the use of new technologies or small measures that can make the difference.
New technologies are revolutionizing the way we live, communicate and create. They open up new possibilities, allow us to think of new forms and, above all, can make work accessible thanks to 3D printing, which allows us to create projects in a simple, fast and economical way. We are working on the development of systems to guarantee full accessibility of places of culture and art.
Augmented reality will be used to develop back-end applications for experts in the cultural heritage sector. These applications will be aimed at creating 3D models of spaces, such as museums and archaeological sites, where users will move and where reconstructions of objects to be presented, such as historical finds or virtual reconstructions, will be positioned. In addition, the technology will be used to perform 3D scanning of real finds to create the reconstructions. The applications developed, thanks to the use of sensors on users’ devices, will be able to position the user in real time in the surrounding space, both real and virtual, and to position virtual objects in the real environment relative to the user. Context recognition and search techniques that exploit profiling information and ontology will also be developed. Furthermore, it will be possible to enhance architectural structures from the same historical period by creating specific tourist routes and historical itineraries, showing the vision of the real building and superimposing the reconstruction of different historical periods, as well as including 3D models of other buildings of interest to the user, both in the itinerary and outside of it.